How good and pleasant it is when God's people dwell together in unity!

We capped off our ten days in Lusaka at a wonderful worship service. All the Eternal Glory house churches came together for a joint worship celebration and it was awesome!

About two hundred worshipers packed a small hall in the lodge where we'd been doing our training and over the course of about two and a half hours we sang and danced, had a great Bible study, prayed, praised, received the Word, gave and enjoyed warm fellowship.

I (Doug) was privileged to preach. I chose John 20:19-23 as my text and focused on the five P's of the Greatest Commission, as some have called it, on Jesus' Presence, Peace, Pattern, Power and Purpose. A local elder translated my sermon into Nyanja, a language that crosses tribal languages and is commonly used in Lusaka. He and I did really well together. What a pleasure!

One of the things I loved about the worship was the full participation of the children, including the lovely little girl pictured above. They danced and sang, prayed and praised, and even listened, for the most part. :)

God's family, together in unity, is indeed a precious thing!

It Wasn't What I Expected!

"It wasn't what I expected." Dr. Silavwe was praising Abby's approach and content when he said these words at the end of the first day of training in Lusaka, but as the week unfolded it wasn't what we expected either. It was better!

Whenever you gather leaders from far (hundreds of miles) and near, you expect it will take 2-3 days to become comfortable enough with one another to have significant discussions and meaningful applications of our training. But this wasn't the case. The first day, the class members were wide open and meaningful interactive learning began to take place immediately. In the subsequent days of training, we manged to cover an amazing amount of ground. More importantly, we were able to apply the principles we were teaching to specific situations and opportunities and, as a consequence, all of us learned a great deal from one another. What a joy!

In five days, we covered Understanding the Bible, The Wounded Healer, Family & Ministry Systems, Missionary God, Vision in Ministry, A Biblical View of Worship, Church Planting Basics, How to Use the Global Study Bible, and Being, Becoming and Doing!

The students were amazing people, eager to learn and had a deep passion for multiplying the Gospel in their communities. It will be interesting to hear about how they apply what they learned in the coming months and years.

As the week ended, we were able to give each student an IMC Training Manual which we self-publish. It contains detailed outlines of everything we taught this week and much more!

We also gave each student a Global Study Bible. This amazing Bible, published by Crossway (now out of print), is intended for Majority World Christians and contains helps and articles applicable to their world. The students literally broke into cheers when we surprised them with the Bibles because a tool like this is so very difficult to afford in Zambia. Thanks to donors at Global Training Network and Centre Presbyterian Church (Mooresville, NC) we were able to bless the students with this outstanding study tool!

Last, but certainly not least, Dr. and Mrs. Silavwe and the Eternal Glory Church members were very gracious hosts and the meeting place, food, lodging and schedule were all conducive to learning and growing together. All in all, it was a great week!

From 3 to 2,000

What a Sunday! We were invited to preach/teach at Dr. Silavwe's house church, Eternal Glory, about 5 miles outside Lusaka. Two years ago, Dr. Silavwe, his wife and daughter launched this church in their living room. Their first Sunday it was just the three of them. Today, Eternal Glory Church numbers 2,000 members (and a Bible school) scattered across several provinces through new church planting and the addition of unaffiliated congregations. Amazing!

Abby preached on Isaiah 43:1-4, emphasizing how precious we are to the Lord who honors us!. I then preached on Galatians 3:24-29 about the amazing benefits we have in Christ. Percy led beautiful worship music, as did their praise team.

The small congregation was delightful, engaged, filled with praise and warmly welcomed our ministry. What an honor! Afterwards, we enjoyed a great meal with the Silavwe family.

This coming Sunday, Abby & I will be preaching again when the area Eternal Glory house churches come together into a congregation of about two hundred. With Percy leading worship, it should be a very special time!

Dr. Silavwe teaches at Justo Mwale University (Seminary) and the University of Zambia. He holds two Ph.D.'s and is working on a third. He is the Bishop of the Eternal Glory denomination and is one of the planning team members for the Zambian College of Chaplaincy. Mrs. Silavwe is an accomplished middle school teacher. They have three kids, 10, 11 & 15. The Silavwe's are standing to Abby's left in the back row and Percy is on the far left in the back row in the photo below of the church.

Anything Means Everything!

Well, we've arrived! We are staying at the lovely Mika Lodge in Lusaka. Feel free to drop by if you're in town! Our trip was very smooth and last night we both rested beautifully and are feeling very refreshed. Thanks for your prayers!

This afternoon, we met with Dr. Silavwe who is our host for the next ten days. He graciously welcomed us to Lusaka and invited us to lunch at his home tomorrow so we can meet his family. We are humbled and excited.

He also told us that he had looked through our training manual to see what he thought would benefit the twenty pastors who are coming next week. His comment was not what we expected. He said, "I'd like you to do all of it in a compressed format."

On the one hand, his words were very encouraging. We've worked for the last five years to develop a great training manual, one that meets the needs of Zambian pastors and leaders and is a real encouragement to them. The fact that Dr. Silavwe affirmed the entire manual is awesome!

On the other hand, as I mentioned in my previous blog, our manual covers about one hundred hours of training. We'll have about twenty-five hours of training with the pastors next week. That's going to mean a lot of compressing!

So, would you pray for us as we plan with Percy over the next couple of days? Pray that the Holy Spirit will lead us as we choose what to emphasize and what to summarize quickly, and pray also that we will follow the Spirit's lead as the week unfolds and we get to know the pastors. Our goal is to serve them and encourage them as we are strengthened and encouraged by them, as well!